George Jowett, Ottley Coutler, David Willoughby and the Organization of American Weightlifting, 1911-1924

George Jowett, Ottley Coutler, David Willoughby and the Organization of American Weightlifting, 1911-1924 by John D. Fair I do not hesitate to say that the beginning was a very hard struggle, and that there were times when the outlook was dark, owing to the antagonism and disinterest evinced from certain quarters where such conditions should never have arisen. The present success is all due to the fact that my brother officials in the cause stuck to their guns and never quit, and I hope that our many members will never forget their efforts and the way that they helped myself make this organization what it is now, a power for good.(1) —George F. Jowett, 1925 In the early 1920s a new era was dawning in American athletics.“Free from Europe’s struggle to recover from the effects of war,” writes a leading sport historian, “Americans enjoyed a golden age of sport.”(2) Although those observations apply chiefly to such major spectator sports as baseball and football, weightlifting was undergoing a metamorphosis from the strongmanism of an earlier era to a more regulated and respectable status. At least since the turn of the century, American strongmen, imitating their old world counterparts, flaunted their might and muscle, often with considerable artifice, before unsuspecting audiences at circuses, sideshows, vaudeville performances, and other public displays. There were also some amateur weightlifting contests and – since the days when Richard Kyle Fox’s Police Gazette made offers of medals, trophies, money, and a diamond-studded belt – frequent challenges between professionals. Ultimately at stake was the coveted title of “World’s Strongest Man.” But there was no reliable means to verify performances of American strength athletes, many of whom avoided actual competition and made exaggerated claims in order to promote the sale of physical development courses. What was needed was an organization that would systematize lifts and records, provide a more honest competitive environment, and enhance the credibility of the sport. David Webster, in The Iron Game, traces the formation of the American Continental Weight- Lifters Association (ACWLA) in the early 1920s by highlighting the contributions of George Jowett, Ottley Coulter, and David Willoughby.(3) More detailed information, largely from the Jowett- © 2012 The Aasgaard Company StartingStrength.com The Organization of American Weightlifting 1911-1924 Coulter correspondence in the Todd-McLean Collection, reveals the many trials and tribulations they experienced in transforming weightlifting from a spectacle into a sport. For decades prior to their collaboration there were countless appeals from aspiring champions for national competitive standards. That other amateur sports, especially track and field (and weightlifting in most European countries), were affiliated to an official regulatory body heightened such expectations. It was only natural that these hopes should converge on Philadelphia where Alan Calvert had founded the Milo Barbell Company in 1902. He disseminated information for barbell trainees first by means of a modest pocket-sized guide and then through Strength magazine, founded in 1914, which ultimately exercised the greatest influence on the development of an early iron game culture.(4) In 1911 Calvert published a book, entitled The Truth About Weightlifting, which recommended a standardization of procedures. He attributed weightlifting’s lack of popularity to the very foolish and short-sighted attitude of the professional lifters in this country. These professionals have made a practice of deceiving and ‘buncoing’ the public for so long a time, that the public has become disgusted with their methods and has come to the conclusion, either that all weight lifters are fakirs, or else that weight-lifting is a peculiar kind of sport in which only a few men can excel. Probably you have noticed that every professional weight-lifter in America eagerly and earnestly proclaims himself to be ‘the strongest man in the World.’ They seem to have the idea that nobody will pay to see them perform unless they make this claim. Sometimes they qualify it by modestly stating that they are the strongest man in the world of their weight. Practically every one of these professionals claims to hold all the world’s records. They know that the general public is not accurately informed as to the records and they take advantage of the fact by making all sorts of ridiculous statements regarding their own lifts. To remedy this outrage perpetrated by money grubbers, Calvert recommended the certification of officials, the use of tested scales, lifts performed in the European manner, and the establishment of weight classes. Most importantly, he called for an American Board of Control to administer the sport permanently. Calvert was adamant that it be “a board of amateurs, and no professional lifter should have a voice in selecting or interpreting a rule regarding lifting.” Recognizing that there were few men sufficiently competent to serve in this capacity, he suggested that they look to the large urban centers – New York, Chicago, and St. Louis – where hundreds of newly arrived Germans, Austrians, and Frenchmen, “fully conversant with the European system of lifting,” could “form a nucleus around which to build a national association.”(5) But Calvert’s idealistic appeal elicited no widespread response. After 1914 there existed at least a possible mouthpiece upon which a national organization could be based. Yet for several years Strength was limited chiefly to articles on basic strength training and muscle moulding, accompanied by inspiring photos of the leading practitioners of the day. Then in the January 1917 issue Ottley Coulter, drawing on his experience as a circus and stage performer, published an important article on “Honesty in Weight Lifting and the Necessity of Making Lifters Prove Their Claims.” The Parkman, Ohio, native pointed out that those sports which had fallen under the aegis of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) since its founding in 1888 were properly regulated and thrived from “a greater real rivalry. There can be no real rivalry without a basis of equality.” Like Calvert, he rebuked the claims of many professional strongmen whose “reputation for strength” was “more apparent than real.” “The difficulty of gaining reliable information on strength feats during the strongman era,” he later recalled, “was one of the reasons I wrote the first plea for regulation of weightlifting. However my interest was not entirely altruistic at that time. I believed that I could lift more pounds at a time than any man of my weight living at that time.” Unfortunately, by the time © 2012 The Aasgaard Company 2 StartingStrength.com The Organization of American Weightlifting 1911-1924 “a lifting society with official status was finally organized, I had long left the heavy poundage lifting for hand to hand.”(6) What Coulter envied most was the regulated lifting enforced by associations in Britain, France, Germany and Austria where “every city has its lifting club, the same as every college in this country has its track team, and the lifting rules are the same in each club.” To attain international standing for American lifters, he hoped that Calvert who possessed “a greater knowledge of lifting than any man in this country,” would “take the initiative” in forming a lifters’ association. Although Calvert heartily endorsed Coulter’s views, the Great War intervened, and the non-appearance of Strength for about two years effectively stymied whatever momentum Coulter’s appeal had induced for organization.(7) By 1920 Strength was back in business, and Calvert declared his intention, in light of the many letters he had received, to publish a list of records governing the various styles, classifications, and conditions of lifts that could be performed.(8) Such a compilation required painstaking care and accuracy as well as access to the most current information. Calvert, with the demands of his business, did not have sufficient time, so he delegated the task to Coulter, who was already supplying information for the magazine from his vast collection of domestic and foreign physical culture publications. Most importantly, Coulter was an avid correspondent, and in light of the relative absence of published information on lifting occasioned by the war, he remained in touch with Professor Edmond Desbonnet in France and with Theodor Siebert and Albert Stolz, the two most reliable sources on German records. “Up all night writing ‘Records for Strength’” is Coulter’s diary entry for October 1, 1920.(9) In the November issue was a full disclosure of European records in 46 different lifts and their American counterparts, so far as could be discerned. What hampered any definitive compilation, however, was the lack of any authoritative body in the United States that could verify lifters’ claims. With the AAU preoccupied with track and field, Coulter advocated a separate organization for weightlifting. He received full support from Strength editor J. C. Egan, who believed that an association would settle the strongman controversies that plagued the sport. The chief dispute then raging was over Warren Lincoln Travis’ $10,000 challenge to anyone to defeat him in a ten lift event. No agreement seemed possible over what lifts should be included and how they were to be performed. With greater regulation, Egan argued, “the real champion would obtain full credit for his lifts, and we would have real honesty in weight lifting, a thing that is absolutely impossible under present circumstances.(10) A response to Coulter’s appeal was immediately forthcoming from George Fiusdale Jowett, a native of Bradford, England, who had migrated to eastern Canada during the war. Jowett expressed “great interest” in forming a lifters’ association, explaining to Coulter that he had been appointed by Stanley Gullick of the British Amateur Weight-Lifters Association (BAWLA) to form a Canadian affiliate, but with the head body being so far away, & the prolonged wait for letters & replies going & coming, nothing could be accomplished.

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